Wow! Hard to believe that there is only ONE more week until the reveal of our boys room makeover! If you are just joining us today and wondering what on earth I’m talking about, we’ve (and I say we because my hubby is ACTIVELY involved in this makeover process) been participating in the One Room Challenge, which is basically where a bunch of designers and bloggers come together and renovate one room in their home and take their readers along the journey!

I actually technically started one week before the official challenge when I shared the inspiration board for our boys room. Then for the first official week 1, I showed you the current state of the boys room (be warned, it was bad) and our plans to change it. Week 2, we talked about the wall color and what inspired our painting design. Week 3, we talked about how we painted the beds and then last week, I showed you how I painted the dresser, added some animal hardware and a fun DIY project.

So this week, I have two things to share with you about this room: one exciting creation and one failed DIY that we had to fix. I’m the type of person that likes to just rip off the bandaid so let’s start by talking about the failed DIY and get that out of the way.

So last week, I shared with you how we made these adorable plastic animal drawer pulls for the dresser. It was such an easy project and when drawer pulls can cost a lot, this was a way to also save as the animals were purchased from the dollar store.

We got all the hardware necessary, installed them, took pictures, posted the blog and then sat back, looked at each other and said “We hate it!” HA! Ok, hate is a strong word, but we weren’t feeling it, that’s for sure. Let me explain.

In theory, the concept was pretty cool. But when we finally got them all on the dresser, it didn’t look as GREAT as we had hoped. I think there were two issues. First, we probably should have gotten all of the same animal, or at least stuck with two. The rhino and bear are by far our favorites (and to be fair, we both LOVE the way the bear looks on the small drawer). We probably should have just found more of those and maybe we would have liked the look better.

The second, and more important reason as to why it just wasn’t working for us, as that our kids kept TURNING the animals. We found that we couldn’t get them to stop moving (and maybe that was our bad for how we installed them). But every single time I would walk into the room, the critters were all UPSIDE DOWN! The OCD in me couldn’t leave them like that, so it was a constant battle to keep them upright!

Over the years of doing DIY projects, I’ve come to realize that even great ideas don’t always turn out quite how you had imagined they would. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. Sometimes it’s a great idea but just isn’t going to work in your context. And that’s what happened with us and these animal drawer pulls.

I’m not knocking them as full fledged failed DIY…just a failed DIY for our space.

So while we were recently away in the US on business, my hubby ran into a Hobby Lobby (don’t even get me started about how much I wish that store were in Canada) and bought eight geometric gold and silver knobs to replace the animals. They didn’t have enough of one metal, so he decided to mix the gold and silver, which I am a big fan of! Sometimes in DIY, it’s ok to realize things aren’t working out, jump ship and hop onto another idea!

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to something happier and more exciting! ARTWORK! To me, this is the funnest part of making over a space…it’s dressing the walls and shelves. It’s taking a flat surface and really bringing it to life!

My husband and I have had a small Etsy shop running alongside of this blog, with four collections of prints that we created. I used to host the shop directly on my blog, but I found that it was really complicated to maintain the backend of it plus it seemed to slow down my blog quite a bit. I figured by putting it on Etsy, which is a community of artisans, it would open up my work to people who weren’t necessarily my blog readers.

We’ve been wanting to create a few more collections for months now and just haven’t had the time (they are quite time consuming). But we finally got around to designing a collection for this boys’ room makeover and I’m SO excited to share them with you! What’s even MORE exciting is that NEXT WEEK, they will be available for YOU to purchase as well! So if you like the look and design of the room and are wanting to create a space similar in your home, these prints will be perfect for you! So make sure to check back for those (and of course, the final reveal!)

Well that’s all for this week folks! Make sure to stay tuned for next week, the final week of the challenge as we REVEAL the completed space! I’ll be busy working my tail off all weekend to make sure the space is perfect to show all of you!

Brenda Bond

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Meet Christine

Hi there! I'm Christine! Welcome to Amidst the Chaos! Life is chaotic with having had three kids in four years, but follow along as we discover the beauty in the everyday through recipes, DIY's, home decor, party planning and so much more!